M. L. Kerlan (they/he) is a queer and trans writer, critical librarian, artist, and freelancer living in central Illinois.

M. is a lover of books, language, and forms that jostle the boundaries of genre and craft.

His varied projects orbit impressions of love, gender, sexuality, libraries, mental health, and the everyday.

M. was formerly a child in upstate New York and later a young adult in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in creative nonfiction; gender, sexuality, & women’s studies; and children’s literature from the University of Pittsburgh. Returning to the University as a graduate student, they earned their master’s degree in library & information science, specializing in metadata & cataloguing, community-centered digital preservation, and critical librarianship.

Currently, they live in rural midwestern quiet with their wonderful partner and three cats. He can be found somewhere making art and things out of words, reading, climbing rocks, or tracking book challenges as News Editor for the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy, the official journal of the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF).

recent publications

"Being Trans is Good, Actually" | Medium's Gender from the Trenches

"Standing on the Precipice of Myself" | Medium's Gender from the Trenches

"On Being Full of Spiders" | Medium's Gender from the Trenches

"On Seeking Joy in a Vacuum" | Pendemic (Ireland) | Pandemic (Netherlands) | Santa Fe Writer's Project Quarterly

"Thought Pollution: on Sanity in Crisis" | Another Chicago Magazine